Mali under pressure to contain spread of Ebola virus after third death

[Annihilation]

Mali under pressure to contain spread of Ebola virus after third death

Health officials must quickly and rigorously track, identify and isolate subsequent cases

PUBLISHED : Monday, 17 November, 2014, 9:29pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 18 November, 2014, 12:18am

Associated Press in Bamako, Mali

Mali is tracing at least 200 contacts linked to confirmed and probable Ebola deaths in the capital, Bamako, as it seeks to control an outbreak of the deadly virus. Photo: Reuters

It all started with a sick nurse, whose positive test for Ebola came only after her death. In a busy clinic that treats Mali's elite as well as wounded UN peacekeepers, what patient transmitted the virus?

Soon hospital officials were taking a second look at the case of a 70-year-old man who died after being brought to the capital late at night from Guinea suffering from kidney failure. A friend who visited him later died, too.

The 70-year-old man had Ebola and all three of the relatives who brought him to the clinic that night had since been admitted to an Ebola treatment centre back home in Guinea.

On Friday, Malian health authorities went to disinfect the mosque where the 70-year-old's body was prepared for burial - nearly three weeks ago. Already some are criticising the Malian government for being too slow to react when health authorities had announced his death as a suspected Ebola case earlier in the week.

"It's been 18 days since the Guinean man sick with Ebola died here. It's just too late," said Koumou Keita.

For nearly a year, Mali had been spared the virus now blamed for killing more than 5,000 people across West Africa despite the fact it shared a porous land border with Guinea, where the epidemic first erupted.

Now there are least three confirmed Ebola deaths, and two other suspected deaths in Mali's capital, Bamako.

"I feel uneasy because I have the impression that our authorities are not giving us the whole truth," said Ibrahim Traore, who works at a supermarket in the capital. "There are a lot of things not being said about how the Ebola virus came to Bamako."

Health officials now must try to track down not only family and friends who visited the 70-year-old at hospital, but also the people who prepared his body for burial and attended his funeral. Investigators are also headed to the border community where authorities believe he first fell ill.

"The future of Ebola in Mali will depend on the quality of the surveillance of these contacts. If they are rigorously followed, and subsequent cases quickly identified and isolated, the battle will be won. But if there are failures in the process, it will lead to further contamination and further problems," said Ibrahima-Soce Fall, Mali's WHO representative.

Officials said that 442 people who may have been exposed to the virus had been placed under surveillance or quarantine.

Among those placed under quarantine were about 20 members of the UN peacekeeping force who were treated for battlefield wounds at the Bamako hospital where the dead nurse had worked.

Travellers from Mali were from yesterday subjected to enhanced screening for Ebola upon arrival in the United States. Such measures were already in place for travellers from the West African nations at the heart of the outbreak - Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea.

"We have a tradition of living closely together that could contribute to a huge contamination," said bank worker Aminata Samake. "On public transport you find people crammed into a bus, one on top of the other. Large families share the same plates, even the same glasses for tea."